Laine 11th career hatty vs BUF

[amnesiac]

Ok.

Few top picks will remedy that.

Certainty of natural goal scoring instinct and skill vs Potential of those things.

I agree, with Patrik you must accept high risk, but with it comes also high reward.

Probably the hardest asset to place a value. 'Unicorn'.

its also just knowing that the Habs will have more expensive RFA contracts as well.... 4 have already been signed, and then theres Hutson and Demidov which will probably be in the $10M range in a few years, as well as others down the road (2025 pick, Hage, Beck, Reinbacher, Mailloux, maybe Dach and Newhook)..... it all adds up. You just cant make mistakes with UFAs as youre stuck with them.

 

[Marioesque]

Nowhere am I questioning his shot. Hes a great offensive player when healthy, not good defensively, but thats ok. But go ask WPG and CLB fans about the bad times and areas of his game. Hes far from perfect.

Nobody said he was perfect. What I said was, he is not a defensive problem in his line. Dach is leading NHL in minuses and Newhook is quite useless too. If you watch the games, you would know. Dach was leading NHL in minuses while Laine wasn't even playing. Blaming Laine for the poor line is not rational.

And I watch a lot of offensive players and pretty much none of them are defensively good. Rantanen for sure isn't. McDavid isn't much on defense. Not everyone is Barkov, and they should not be expected to be either.

And I have seen pretty much all of his NHL games, WPG and CBJ included so if you want to know about his weaknesses or strengths, I'm one to ask.

There was a goal against Pittsburgh where Hutson was late to come back so Laine covered, I think it was Rakell and just left his side to go for the puck battle in the corner and that caused a goal. He isn't a defenseman, if he is covering for D and loses his position I'm not gonna be shocked or judge him by that alone.

What is Laine, a winger already in the offensive zone, to do when Dach takes puck behind opponents net and then throws a breakout pass to a streaking opponent who goes for breakaway? This is the stuff you can't see in the stats, so stats alone are not enough to make much judgment on how someone is playing.

Laine has either lead his team in +/- or been in the dumps, and it has depended on how good of a line he is in. Because with him the best defense is offense. He is also always out there when the team pulls the goalie, that's a recipe for getting a lot of minuses.

 

[amnesiac]

Nobody said he was perfect. What I said was, he is not a defensive problem in his line. Dach is leading NHL in minuses and Newhook is quite useless too. If you watch the games, you would know. Dach was leading NHL in minuses while Laine wasn't even playing. Blaming Laine for the poor line is not rational.

And I watch a lot of offensive players and pretty much none of them are defensively good. Rantanen for sure isn't. McDavid isn't much on defense. Not everyone is Barkov, and they should not be expected to be either.

And I have seen pretty much all of his NHL games, WPG and CBJ included so if you want to know about his weaknesses or strengths, I'm one to ask.

and Laine is no Rantanen or McDavid on offense. Thats the difference....

And if you want to take +/- as a measure, in 2018-19 he was a -24 playing on a very good line in WPG, it was BY FAR the worst +/- on the team (next worst was -12 and -7)

2020-21 he was -29 in 45GP on CLB, again by far the worst on the team.

So thats very telling on his 5 on 5 play. If you claim to watch as much as you do, then you could attest to that.

So that on top of constant injuries.... does his offense when healthy make up for it, and make him worth investing in long term? Not to me. Id rather go with another UFA when theyre real contenders.

 

[Marioesque]

and Laine is no Rantanen

I'm a big fan of both, but if my team needs a goal and the choice is between the two I'll play Laine every time.

 

[amnesiac]

I'm a big fan of both, but if my team needs a goal and the choice is between the two I'll play Laine every time.

and if I has to invest a lot of money and years on one of them its Rantanen 7 days a week and twice on Sundays. Rantanen's been a 50G/100P player, geez.

Thats what this is about, and not who would you take for one game on the PP.

 

[Marioesque]

and if I has to invest a lot of money and years on one of them its Rantanen 7 days a week and twice on Sundays. Rantanen's been a 50G/100P player, geez.

Thats what this is about, and not who would you take for one game on the PP.

I didn't say PP, just talking about their offensive ability. And of course you're right, Rantanen has had a much more steady, healthy career. Where as he has played first line with 2 of the top 5 players in the world for all of those 100+ point seasons. I watch him regularly too, every year in fantasy I have one of those 3 Colorado weapons and it makes me watch them a lot.

While Laine has been centered by people like Brian Little, Paul Stastny, Boone Jenner, Jack Roslovic or Cole Sillinger for most of his career, in the 2nd line. There is a difference in opportunity between 20+ minutes a game with MacKinnon and 10 minutes with Dach. Although if you look at the amount of career hat tricks, you would not be able to tell who has the advantage in opportunity.

 

[Hins77]

Your examples are UFAs on their 2ND UFA contract.

Im talking about stars when they become UFA around age 28-30. Thats what contenders do like say Tampa with Guentzel last summer, FLA with Reinhart, VGK with Pietrangelo and Stone, etc etc

yes some can be busts or hurt you longterm, there always risk involved, but the point is, to me, Laine would be the biggest and highest risk of all given his recent history.

I take Laine over Guentzel and Reinhart.

And those guys are like the best UFA you can dream of. Not sure Montreal is their first destination. There will always have a southern team with a better offer. Dreaming about legit UFA in Montreal. Just keep Laine and you will be allright

 

[NotCommitted]

And if you want to take +/- as a measure, in 2018-19 he was a -24 playing on a very good line in WPG, it was BY FAR the worst +/- on the team (next worst was -12 and -7)

2020-21 he was -29 in 45GP on CLB, again by far the worst on the team.

So thats very telling on his 5 on 5 play. If you claim to watch as much as you do, then you could attest to that.

You pick out the two seasons out of 7 where he sucked, but the rest he was either the best or among the best players on his team for 5v5 goal differential, which btw is what you should be looking at instead of +/-

A player who doesn't PK but plays a lot of PP and practically all empty net situations will always get a lot of minuses, even if playing well (not saying Laine played well those seasons you picked out, though 18-19 he was leading the league in goals by early December but then AFAIK was playing through an injury and his game tanked. Anyway, point is that getting hung up on +/- commenting 5v5 play makes no sense).

What I'm saying is he's usually fine 5v5, during his best years even very good, but his lows can also be very low. Health is the big question mark and that risk already sort of materialized for Montreal, but maybe the silver lining here is it happened before he even got to really start his career there. One can only hope he stays healthy from now on.

He's only one year older than Suzuki and he could be a great signing for MTL, agewise would be a great fit. If he stays healthy he could be a bit of a bargain relatively speaking - but at this point ignoring his injury history would seem stupid and it can also be very demoralizing for a young team to keep losing one of their best players to injury, so not saying there wouldn't be any risk. Good thing is they shouldn't be in a hurry, enjoy the goals as long as he keeps scoring them and keep an eye on his 5v5 play as he gets up to speed, he's coming off a knee injury and didn't play hockey for almost a year after all. The way I see it they should use this year to evaluate and make decisions either during the summer or sometime next season.